Long lost Amstrad CPC prototype of Bushido Warrior found!

After our recent post on the 16/8-bit editions of Bushido Warrior, remains of the #AmstradCPC version has been found and released today on #GTW, thanks to preservation efforts of Steve Brown. A neat oriental themed Gauntlet clone due for release in 1988.
www.gamesthatwerent.com/2024/...

[@merman1974]

This is a great find, and interesting to see how far along this version was. 1988 was when Ariolasoft were starting to pull out of distributing other companies' games. So that may explain why it ended up at US Gold/Adventuresoft. The Heroes of the Lance demo is cool too.

[@NorthWay_no]

Poor CPC owners, you really were considered second-class Spectrum owners by the devs. Gauntlet should have been one of the dazzling full-colour games on the system (and by association Bushido too) but instead I would have said this was from the ZX if I knew nothing better. Interesting find nonetheless. Was this based on the G1 or G2 engine?

[@GamesThatWerent]

It was only the ST edition of Bushido which was based on Gauntlet's code (we believe). Though the 8-bit editions were new developments from scratch by two different development companies.

[@davesemmens9496]

For the Devs it was easier on the Amstrad to just use fat pixel mode and do a like for like conversion of the spectrum version - even reducing the screen down on the Amstrad. Most of the underlying code was the same with only the output and inputs needing different code. It didn't use the Amstrads full potential unfortunately. Bushido differs as it was coded separately to the Spectrum version.

[@CPCGameReviews]

Err... the Amstrad CPC version of _Gauntlet_ uses its palette to good effect: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jpXUaGOtj5Z7n6M You're right about this version of _Bushido_ looking like it's running on the ZX Spectrum, though. Unfortunately too many Amstrad CPC games were "Spectrum ports" as it was quicker for developers to convert the game to the CPC without having to spend additional time and resources redrawing the graphics.

[@NorthWay_no]

@@CPCGameReviews Oh yes, Gauntlet2 is not bad at all, but it could have been closer to a scaled down version of the ST, at least keeping the floor tile graphics. I'm guessing that was skipped to make for faster sprites and/or converting over data and approach from the other 8-bit versions.